


Brick by Brick

by Project0506



Series: Soft Wars [95]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends: Republic (Comics), Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Introspection, gen - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-05
Updated: 2020-06-05
Packaged: 2021-03-03 22:00:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,171
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24552787
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Project0506/pseuds/Project0506
Summary: He builds his Marines to endure.
Series: Soft Wars [95]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1683775
Comments: 25
Kudos: 351





	Brick by Brick

There’s a huff disturbed air. A grunt, a thud of fist on forearm. Too slow, 1138 thinks. He’s gotten better at judging that, he thinks.

Exertion echoes. Mat sticks damp to the bottoms of bare feet, only to peel away as ripping open a scab. Low arm block, high kick, then a left twist. Always left, after low-then-high. Predictable. Rote. This is more like meditation than a fight. If he lets himself he knows he could drop into the sharp bright fluorescence, the reverberating emptiness of the night.

Cmdr Keller’s lungs bellow. His hair is too long for regs and too short to pull back; it’s stuck cross his forehead, curled at his neck, distraction at his ears. It’s the risk you take with customization, when regs quote the most efficient. 1138 will allow it, if he can defend it.

1138 strikes and Cmdr Keller cannot defend.

His elbow comes up _too slow_ , fist in front of neck _far too slow_. There’s a counter attack already brewing in his mind but it’s no more than a twitch in his offhand. Slow. Predictable.

_Weak_.

1138 strikes. Cmdr Keller cannot defend. The impact drowns out the shush of Kamino’s ever-present rain at the high windows. Sweat, blue elastiplast mats turned black with damp, and the commander’s feet slip.

Chin tucked, twist to land on hip and shoulder, a textbook fall, but still his temple bounces off the sparring mat. Failure, 1138 thinks, on his own part. He’s gotten better at judging that too. A strike too hard, too fast. One or the other is allowable. Both gives a man no chance.

That’s what this is, this scripted spar in an empty gym long after the rest have been dismissed for the night. This is a chance, one last one. If Cmdr Keller fails, he’ll get what he wants.

He’s failing. 1138 hasn’t made the final call and he should have an hour ago. He’s failed more promising candidates in half the time this past tenday. One more round he tells himself, he’s lost count how often he’s told himself.

“Starting position.”

Hate buffets hot in the air. Cmdr Keller’s face burns with it, 1138 lets it whisper around him. He isn’t the first.

Phase One of 1138’s three phase training program is already half through. He knows hate by now must be resident among the men, driven to their limits by this unknown outsider they’d been assigned.

_Hate me, if you wish. But you will respect me. And you will fight._

The memory is salted ash in his mouth. He doesn’t want to know what the words would taste like, if he ever managed to say them.

“Starting position,” he orders and Cmdr Keller stands. He spits something curved and sharp in vowels he knows, they all know by now, that 1138 doesn’t understand. They wonder if he’s really their brother and sometimes 1138 wonders himself.

1138 waits _too long_ and moves _too slow_. Too slow but Cmdr Keller is slower. He and his ilk are shamefully, terrifyingly slow.

_Disgraceful._ _T_ _hey’ll have to suffice_. And yet sufficient isn’t acceptable, not when 1138 knows where he’ll be taking these men. Sufficient isn’t acceptable; standard isn’t acceptable.

1138 will have a different standard. They will meet it or be left.

Cmdr Keller is too slow.

1138 strikes, no feint, hard and high and fast. Left shoulder, again, where the commander’s block is weakest and he’s made no effort to change. Left shoulder, a bone-rattling glance off the forearm he manages to get up. Then low, left hip undefended and off-balance. Cmdr Keller’s knee buckles with the force of it, 1138 gets an ankle around his, gets his forearm across his ribs and follows the strike through.

Cmdr Keller goes down. Knee, hip, shoulder, head. The impacts roll like a thunderclap, jars 1138’s teeth. For a second Cmdr Keller struggles to keep from retching.

“ _Hold_.”

Under his hand, Cmdr Keller tremors, skin pouring sweat over goosebumps. 1138 should have called it an hour ago.

“Hold,” he says and he’s not a gentle man but he knows enough for this. Cmdr Keller holds, and under his hand he slows. 1138 traces impact points, checks joints, assesses motion.

“Nothing broken,” Cmdr Keller reports before 1138 can. “Whiplash possible. Ice, and observation. Reassess in 10 hours.”

“Correct.”

“I don’t need you to validate. I _am_ a medic.”

“I know.”

“I wondered.”

They’ve all wondered, 1138 knows. All whispered and doubted. Medics are specialized, they spend their time in very different training in the last few years. In their focus they let their combat training lapse, a bit. And they can. Medics man the back line to support the front.

Where 1138 takes these men, there will be no back line.

Cmdr Keller’s chest eases its bellow under 1138’s palm. There’s trust in his closed eyes despite everything. 1138 should have failed him an hour ago. That hour was his own break; Medic Specialist Daan is already in the bleachers, waiting for his spar.

1138 should fail him now, should assign him back to the Coruscant hospital head position he’d stolen him from. It’s what he was designed for, what he wants.

But it’s an hour past the time they should have stopped and Clone Commander Keller had taken his feet every time. Would take his feet now, 1138 thinks, if ordered. 1138 can train proficiency, but not dedication.

One more chance.

“The Marshall Commander and the Medical Commander,” he says and he has learned always to choose every word. They come slow. Too slow. “When the shelling stops, we have a duty to our brothers to still be standing.” He stumbles over the word, the _ tate _1 he knows they don’t understand threatening in it’s place. “If command falls, there are thirty thousand brothers without cover. If medical falls, there are thirty thousand brothers without hope.”

That isn’t acceptable.

1138 walks him through cool downs.

They don’t speak the same language as habit. 1138 isn’t used to seeing understanding in faces like his, isn’t used to his words being able to bridge the space between them. They obey, because they’re told he is to be obeyed. Rarely has 1138 tried to explain beyond that, and never do they understand.

Cmdr Keller says ‘sir’, and 1138 thinks this once, this one might.

“Hydrate, food, shower,” he orders. “Observation tonight, bacta if anything worsens. Report back here at 2000 hours.”

“Sir,” Cmdr Keller says and it’s acknowledgment 1138 wasn’t aware he wanted.

They’ve given him thirty thousand, he thinks and eases the man who could be Marine Medic Commander to his feet. They’ve given him thirty thousand, and expect him to come back when he needs replacements. 1138 does not accept that. He walks Cmdr Keller to the bleachers, walks Specialist Daan to the mats.

Thirty thousand, and 1138 will put hands on every one he can, will give them the best chance he can.

And when next he sees Neyo, he’ll tell him his name with pride.

_ Bacara _2.

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. (JP Mando'a/Concordian Mando'a dialect) Brothers. Back  
> 2\. (JP Mando'a/Concordian Mando'a dialect) Bulwark. Back  
> 


End file.
